Mud, Sweat and Tears

We got into Nha Trang on the same sort of funny buses (here modelled emphatically by Ed Wellard) that were popular in Vietnam, that are only any good if you're under 5ft 5in.

It's the sort of place that if you aren't careful you could spend a week in and do nothing but try and find the pizza restaurant you ate in on the first night. Which is pretty much what we did.

Although, like a troupe of midget prostitutes, that may be selling ourselves short.

We actually just did nothing of any cultural relevance whatsoever. But fuck it, I am well past caring about that.

We let our sun-bleached hair down in Nha Trang, not least by going to some mud baths for a dip in some warm filth, and also to a place called Vin Pearl - an island that was probably once so beautiful it would bring a tear to your third eye, that is now a plastic theme park.


After a couple of days easing ourselves into a state of decadence that would befit a Grauniad-endorsed travel blogger - slinking around town, ripping into husks of bread with our bare teeth, slurping back cheap beer from frozen glasses and chatting with strangers whilst dancing with our mouths full - we met up with the dastardly duo of Edward and Nicola. We accompanied them to the mud baths, where we bathed in mud and ate more pizza.


Nothing of any real note happened here, apart from pretending to be Arnie in Predator, and Daggers getting in a slanging match (and nearly a fist-fight) with a Vietnamese bloke who kicked a cat, like it was some kind of dog, about eight foot in the air.


This muddy emasculation was just the beginning of the water-based fun.

The next day, full of beans and covered in spots (was I supposed to wash the mud off?), we decided to make the trip over to the Vin Pearl resort.

After talking with the hotel lady that had booked our tickets, we decided to completely ignore her advice of getting a taxi to the crossing point. 45 minutes later, more tired and burned than an insomniac protestant in the Spanish Inquisition, we arrived at what we thought would be the entrance to the cable car station.

That it wasn't. We had, in fact, stumbled into a military base, and were getting increasingly stern and confused looks, especially from the black Alsatians guarding the ammunition store.

We did not falter however, and continued to walk through it and onto the street, whence a little further on we found the station. We slipped our four sweaty bodies through the gates and entered the cable car to take us over.


After what was a reasonably hairy ride - the pictures don't do justice to Helen's abject panic - we safely docked and took our first steps into our new world of fun.


The whole place was deserted. We knew that there was a water park on the island, which was the main pull in the first place, but Helen, Ed and Nicky also fancied, much to my dismay, going on the rides in the amusement park.

For the first ten minutes we walked around we did not see another soul - but then we spotted a Vietnamese man and his girlfriend putting their belongings into a locker by a giant boat suspended in the air. Growing some testicles, I refused to be a jacket holder and braved a go on the big swinging pirate ship.

My own feelings of queasiness and horror were fantastically disguised by the Vietnamese man, who squealed like a pig having sex with a saw.

This hilarity masked my own cowardice, so much so that I actually began to enjoy it - and was soon encouraging everyone to go on the decidedly dodgy looking roller coaster. Again, our joy on this ride was completely overshadowed by the joy we had watching the same bloke cling on for dear life with his face in his girlfriend's lap. White knuckles all round.

The next ride was a big spinny-roundy thing that did this to us.

Before

During

After

I didn't enjoy this one as much, not only because at one stage Helen went so quiet in comparison to mine and Ed's guffawing and death cries that I thought she'd fallen out, but the bastard injured me in the gonads. I wouldn't have been surprised if Helen had plummeted to a squidgy end, as the thing was so loose that I was flying about - thus causing the monkey brains injury.

We shakily moved on to the water park, which was a riot. If an incredibly understaffed riot that was closed half the time, meaning we couldn't go on what we wanted when we wanted.

However, if you've read this blog previously, you'll realise that Nicola Carrol's powers of persuasion are a force to be reckoned with. Thus, with the only language non-English understand, that of impending violence, we got to go on nearly everything we wanted to, including 'Kamikaze' (which was gum-dryingly rapid) and a half-pipe style thing that you go down in two's on rubber rings called 'Tsunami'.

This merriment was followed up by an equally enjoyable, and somewhat safer, period in a big pool with a wave machine in it. Ed and I reverted to five-year-olds (and actually made friends with one too) and spent most of the time trying to drown each other in the part of the pool we named ' the Vortex of Doom' that was a little narrow passage where the waves were particular unpredictable and big.

On leaving the pool we realised the importance of wearing suitably water-resistant sun cream. Ed was more sunburned than the Rusky's nuclear bomb at the end of Superman II.

(That's the second Superman II reference in the last ten or so posts. Odd. DOn't even like the Superman films.)

I WISH I had some kind of photographic evidence. If you can imagine Alex Ferguson's nose combined with Postman Pat's van, multiplied to the power of infinity you get somewhere near the hue of the poor bastard's skin.

After these fun times, Ed and Nicky went back home and caught a bus out of town, and we stayed on to watch a laser and water show. Underwhelming.

Did get to have a Cornetto though.